Remote controlled video capture devices comprising analog cameras linked by a dedicated network to camera control devices, monitors and recorders located in a control center are well known as a method of providing surveillance for security of buildings and other facilities. As shown in FIG. 1A, a typical dedicated system comprises a user device 101 running a client application functioning as a user agent 102 which controls an analog camera 103 via a communications interface 104 running on a server 105. Communications channels between these dedicated devices typically comprise closed-network ethernet connections, limiting the scaling of the system to only those devices so provisioned.
Under this closed system, user agent 102 issues instructions 106 A/B to camera 103, which are interpreted via interface 104. The camera returns camera status information 107 A/B, among other operational data to user device 101, again using communications interface 104.
The typical dedicated surveillance system further comprises a viewer 108 on the user device and an analog-to-digital converter 109 coupled to a digital video content storage device 110 on the server. Among the instructions 106 issued by the user agent are commands to either view or record the video content captured by camera 103. In response to either of those instructions, video content 111 is sent from the camera to the analog-to-digital converter 109 on the server. If the instruction was for viewing, the video content is formatted for viewing and is sent as video viewing content 112 to viewer 108. If the instructions included a request for recording, the converter 109 passes the converted content to storage device 110 for storage.
Also well known are video systems commonly referred to as “web cams” (not shown) which have been developed to suit more personal usage requirements. These systems are typically simple digital cameras which send their content to a dedicated computer receiver, from where the content is prepared for distribution via the internet to other parties. These are not truly “web” cameras, in as much as they are not truly accessible directly through internet connections. That is they cannot be controlled by a remote accessing party without the intervention of the dedicated computer.
While these systems provide a user the opportunity to manage (in the case of the surveillance system of FIG. 1) or at least receive (in the case of the web-cams) image captures from remote cameras, neither of them provides a user with the ability to control a remote camera to which the user is not directly connected.
There are other systems, as shown in FIG. 1B which provide a remote user 115 with internet access to a remote IP camera 116. The user device (an example of which might be a common desktop PC), comprises an access and control application 117, a digital content receiver 118, a video content viewer 119 and a video content recording device 120. All camera access and manipulation operations as well as video content receipt, monitoring and storage are managed and performed by and on the user device 115. This system, while providing a user with the ability to connect to a remote device via the internet, does not tend to provide “operation critical” deployments needed for surveillance operations. This is because user-device-based camera access and recording embodiments are inherently less stable and reliable than the dedicated systems shown in FIG. 1, in which system optimization and resource management is handled by a dedicated system server 105.
In addition, none of the above systems is extendible to environments wherein a thin client might be employed to remotely manage and even monitor surveillance operations of a group of remote, network-ready IP video cameras, located in diverse geographical locations, and still maintain the capability to record video content from those operations. Therefore, there is a need for improvement in the art of surveillance operations using the developing technology of IP video cameras and thin client/server applications.